Stuff I’m doing right now

July 30, 2011 by awesomecurry Leave a comment

Because I have nothing else to say right now.

1) Getting ready for Disgaea 4 by…playing Disgaea 3. I don’t want to just miss 1 game in the series and it cost $20, so I got it. There’s some new classes, but mages, warriors, female archer, female healer, male gunner, thief, and beastmaster have the same sprites from Disgaea 2. New skill system sucks because instead of gaining generic skills through leveling up weapon mastery, you now have to buy them with mana. They also get stronger by upgrading by paying mana. In other words, mage spells don’t become stronger or AoE until you pay up and the class feels extremely nerfed. Other than that, I’m having a blast. I like the cast better than Disgaea 2. Almaz is adorable~! His facial expressions are moe. Raspberyl is also adorable, and then we have our princess Sapphire who tried to open someone’s heart using a chainsaw…

2) On the handheld side, I’m taking a break from story-heavy RPGs because I’ve still got Sora no Kiseki fresh in my mind. I’m playing Final Fantasy I (PSP remake) which has no story and the gameplay is pretty bare bones. You get to pick which 4 classes you want to use to run through the game at the very beginning, and stick to them until the end. I’ve tried III and IV on the DS before, and they’re heaps better than the first one. III let you change the classes of the 4 characters whenever you want, and IV actually had a story (but characters with fixed classes). I wasn’t a fan of the ATB and got my ass kicked at the Tower of Zot, but at least it was more exciting than the extremely plain system of I.

Also, it is easy to get lost in FFI and forget what you’re doing. NPCs are pretty vague, and they only speak 1 line. What’s worse is that sometimes multiple NPCs say the exact same line. I guess it isn’t fair to judge a 20+ year old game by modern standards. Some games stand against the test of time well, but many don’t. Either way, FFI isn’t unplayable though. Encounter rates get really annoying and many times I just mash the X button in battle and watch something or play another turn-based game while I wait for the animations to end.

3) Ragequit Infinite Space for the nth time. I’ve tried to get into the game for like a year now, but I hate the battle system and cannot get past Chapter 2 because random ecnounters kick my ass. Maybe if it had a “retry” option like Sora no Kiseki I might be able to get further in before ragequitting again. Real-time menu-based battle systems are a big no for me. Story isn’t very engaging so far, but I ragequit at Chapter 2 so it’s not like I gave it enough time to start a plot. No masterpiece of a story is going to make to want to go through the IS battle system for it, though. The land-based battles are even worse. Ever play Suikoden? Remember the rock-paper-scissors style of the large-scale wars? Didn’t like ’em back then, but even worse in Infinite Space since it’s real time (or was it? I barely remember what happended because I know I got owned before even selecting a command the first time, and the second time I won because the enemy chose to run away after I randomly selected something). Anyways, I picked this game up back when I chose games solely based on peer recommendations rather than instinct, and I didn’t look at gameplay videos or anything, so my fault. The only part I actually liked was customizing my spaceship, but there weren’t exactly a whole lot of options so early in the game.

4) Haven’t touched Wild Arms 3 in a while since my new PS3 sucked time away from my PS2. I’ll get back to it eventually. The battle system is bland since I played WA4 first (I love the hex system), but it’s by no means unplayable.

5) I got the Adventurer ending (most annoying end to get IMO) and the Astrid ending (best ending in the game) in Atelier Rorona, so I’ll stop for now. I’ll come back to try and get all endings eventually when there’s a severe gaming drought or when I desperately need money and can’t buy new games.

6) Slugging my way through Rewrite. I’m not exactly quick at reading Japanese (not to mention that other things have been sucking up my time), and so far Kotarou’s just been getting trolled on the internet. Yoshino is really refreshing for a male best friend character, but the girls aren’t really holding my interest except for Akane. I’ll play through at least 2 routes (or until Akane’s route) before I decide to stop or continue.

7) Also slugging through Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. Been playing this on and off (and I’ve had it for quite a while), but kept getting distracted. I’m trying to clear my DS backlog since it isn’t huge. I mainly have games that I played on a flashcart long ago, liked it and bought a legit copy, lost the save file due to memory card wipe and the legit copy is unplayed.

8) I found a copy of Tales of Symphonia 2 for Wii (probably gonna watch the first game on Youtube since my chances of getting it at a decent price is very slim) and got it because I lack Tales and Wii games. My mom told me the TV I had connected to the Wii was broken AFTER I bought the game fml. Wii and Gamecube games are on hold, but it’s not like my backlog is gonna get much bigger unless I manage to snag a copy of Skies of Arcadia for a reasonable price.